Chapter 17: Ravens Are Strictly White-Collar Workers

Returning to the mortal realm, the rookie reaper team did not continue their on-site inspection.

Since it was theoretically off-duty hours, it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to wander around inside out in the open.

Thus, the group stood at a high vantage point, waiting for a certain little sparrow to return.

Up until now, a certain oblivious youngster still didn’t know what his partner had gone off to do.

“Didn’t I tell you that ravens have the duty of assisting us with our tasks and gathering intelligence?”

Belladonna suddenly felt as if everything she had said earlier was in vain.

Did this guy really not process anything that wasn’t related to combat?

“Ah? Isn’t there a language barrier? Even if she gathers information, how would she pass it on to us?”

“No, take a guess as to who wrote and submitted the reports for your previous two missions. Did you really think you wrote them yourself?”

Belladonna immediately cast a look of sympathy… Not paying attention in class, going out now knowing nothing, only to be taken for an idiot—what a tragedy for you.

“Do you know about Spirit-Manifesting Silk?”

“That ridiculously expensive cloth? Supposedly used for writing, but in this day and age, using cloth instead of paper is way too bizarre.”

Belladonna suddenly began to doubt whether this pair of partners had truly done their own thing without any interaction during the previous two missions… Even if Mikado didn’t know about such things, shouldn’t that sparrow have shown some kind of demonstration?

Of course, Belladonna definitely couldn’t have anticipated that a certain fun-loving sparrow had helplessly chosen to slack off, dumping all the teaching duties onto her in one go—What? I can’t speak out loud anyway, and teaching people is too much trouble. You humans can just figure it out yourselves.

The underworld’s society and technological development were actually quite similar to those of the mortal realm, aside from differences in materials with special properties or phenomena.

Much of the common sense was universal.

Just like the writing cloth Belladonna mentioned, it was actually something only reapers learned about and used.

Ordinary people in the underworld still wouldn’t come into contact with it, as paper had long since replaced cloth for general writing.

“Forget it, let me show you why ravens are always spirit ravens—it’s because of their inherently efficient utilization and control of spiritual energy, good temperaments, and sufficient intelligence.”

With a slightly pained expression, she pulled out a piece of fine fabric.

After Belladonna lightly spread it open, Hydra, who had been listening to their conversation the whole time, landed on top of it.

Accompanying his movements, Mikado noticed that characters gradually began to emerge on the silk cloth, clearly and systematically writing out the basic information for this mission, as well as the guidance and assistance provided by the underworld.

“Understand now? Ravens can use spiritual energy to manifest the thoughts and ideas they construct and wish to share on this special fabric.”

Ravens understood human language and script; in fact, it was a required advanced course for them.

It wasn’t just for passing on intelligence—every mission report for a reaper was written and submitted to the Nether Realm by their raven.

Because manifesting characters in this manner consumed a considerable amount of spiritual power and energy, it was naturally best for the content to be as concise and accurate as possible.

This placed extremely high demands on the raven’s literacy, culture, and summary expression skills.

“You know that grade director and vice principal back when we were studying at school, right?”

“Ah, I know… that eagle-training ‘Lao Gan Ma’.”

What on earth is ‘Lao Gan Ma’… Suppressing the urge to scoff, Belladonna suddenly realized that the person before her was also an oddball who took unconventional paths, just like that legendary reaper.

“Her raven wasn’t a spirit raven. You should know—it’s that fallen eagle that checks discipline all day long.”

Fallen eagles, like nether falcons, were top-tier giant birds of prey in the underworld.

The intelligence of birds in the underworld was generally not low, and as a species standing at the pinnacle of underworld birds in every metric, its car-sized body alone was enough to intimidate anyone.

“Gosh, don’t even bring that up. Damn it, I got caught by it every single day back in school, and I couldn’t even run away…”

When the school gates closed due to being late, one would usually choose to climb over the wall, right? Mikado had played that game too, and just as he was taking a running start to jump, preparing for a magnificent leap over the perimeter wall…

He realized that upon reaching the highest point, he didn’t start falling down.

Instead, he flew higher and higher. Looking up, he saw that giant fallen eagle gripping his clothes and soaring high into the sky.

The proud nature of fallen eagles made them thoroughly enjoy this feeling of dominance and authority.

A little kid breaking the rules? Hee-hee, time to give them a proper hard time.

As a result, a problem student like Mikado received plenty of “special care” from this raptor holding substantial power.

Yet he couldn’t win in a fight, nor could he run away, leaving quite a psychological scar on his student life.

“Though now that you mention it, I remember too. Since even ‘Lao Gan Ma’ didn’t choose a spirit raven, my choosing a bone sparrow isn’t too outrageous either.”

Right, right, right, if you knew how much of a headache the Vice Principal had back then, you wouldn’t think so… Belladonna was rendered speechless, and subsequently spilled some unknown secrets.

“As you know, fallen eagles, being raptors, have an uncontrollable pride and self-assurance in their bones.”

So, expecting such a little… big ancestor to listen to you and obediently cooperate with your work was extraordinarily difficult.

It was willing to manage student discipline because that job happened to suit its taste, but if you asked it to do annoying paperwork and intelligence organization, its half-person-sized talon could slap you so hard into the wall that no one could pick you out.

“Take this Spirit-Manifesting Silk matter for instance. Guess how it reacted when the Vice Principal asked it to provide gathered intelligence and help write a report back then?”

A fallen eagle might not be as delicate in spiritual power control as a spirit raven, but its spiritual power reserve was ridiculously massive, epitomizing the idea of brute force overcoming all obstacles.

Originally, such work should have posed zero difficulty for it.

Then, that fallen eagle gave its partner a harsh lesson, using its surging spiritual power to cover that bed-sheet-sized piece of Spirit-Manifesting Silk with characters.

“It covered the whole thing, but there were only three words in total.”

Looking at the extra-large font spelling out the three words ‘Get lost, kid,’ Belladonna, when she heard about this incident, could already picture the pained expression on that usually stern, strong woman’s face.

Spirit-Manifesting Silk involved complex synthesis processes and low yield; in mortal terms, it was more precious than gold.

Although extremely durable to store, once written on, it could not be reused.

Having such a huge piece of cloth wasted on three completely meaningless words was essentially equivalent to dumping pure gold into the ocean.

“That’s why the teachers said during raven selection to double-check your partner’s disposition, and not to choose weird birds other than spirit ravens… Those were all painful lessons.”

Although she didn’t think that bone sparrow possessed such a lazy and arrogantly unpleasant personality, it was still somewhat unorthodox.

Belladonna even harbored some doubts as to whether Finny had enough spiritual power reserves to write a complete report,

to the point where in the reports for Mikado’s previous two tasks, whether that sparrow had heavily condensed or withheld details during the writing and submission process.

Of course, this young lady could never have imagined that while there was indeed condensing and withholding, the reason was quite different from what she thought.

After all, as his partner, aside from the fun and her painstaking efforts to cultivate Mikado, the little sparrow hadn’t hesitated to make herself his accomplice.

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